


All the Good and Wicked

by orphanwilde



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Explicit Language, I APOLOGIZE, Im horrible at tagging, M/M, Magic, Non-Graphic Violence, and harry is to be betrothed to louis' sister, and harrys a prince of a not so happy land, and he's from across this river, and naturally they fall in love, basically louis is a little shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:40:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29305899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphanwilde/pseuds/orphanwilde
Summary: "Someday this will be past and you'll mourn me like every other failed attempt at forever."Or, alternatively, gay Cinderella.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	All the Good and Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> hi !! im ollie, this is my first fic i've written. but i just wanted to say hi before you start. my twitter is @halorogue so if you have any questions dm me there, and i'm just gonna go over a quick fantasy dictionary because it's a whole made up land and stuff.  
> torryn- this is louis' new estate/house. he's just moved here and he lives with his stepmother, selene, and his stepsisters, adelaide and lucille.  
> edora- the kingdom harry is prince of, on the west side of the pyrespeak river  
> occultan- the kingdom louis used to live in, on the east side of the pyrespeak river  
> the regia magma- it just means big castle so yeah its the palace in edora  
> count- basically a dollar. its a classic fantasy monetary system so :D  
> if you have any more questions feel free to dm!  
> all the love,  
> ollie. xx

The House of Torryn smells of smoke and honey, Louis notices, and it is exactly then he decides he wants to leave. Of course, he can’t leave. He’s only just gotten here.

But that doesn’t stop him from yearning in the company of his own mind for home. For Occultan, across the river, and for air that won’t prompt him to breathe through his mouth in eight-count sighs.

“So dramatic,” Selene, his stepmother, notes, whacking him gently enough on the arm with her hand fan. “Get our bags, won’t you?”

“Of course.” He bows his head and steps off the carriage, ignoring the soreness in the back of his thighs and bum. You don’t sit down for thirty-six hours straight without feeling a little stiff afterwards. Louis waits for Selene and his stepsisters to get off before lifting the seat lids and their cushions, transferring each bag underneath to the road. There are twelve bags. One of them is his.

Naturally, he carries all of them.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Lucille says, kicking his back left heel. “We all need to bathe, and we can’t very well do so without all our things.”

The truth of the matter is, these twelve bags are _not_ all their things. They sent all their things months ago so the architect could perfect the interior design. With the furniture went a handful of clothing pieces and toiletries, and his stepsisters _could_ very well bathe without these twelve bags and they _could_ very well run ahead on their own two legs and bathe without him. But he doesn’t say any of that. He only flinches at the touch and moves forward, whispering a pathetic, “Sorry.”

The next thing Louis notices about Torryn are the trees. They’re wildly big, towering at least a hundred feet into the air with massive girths of smooth, red-brown bark. But the most striking thing about them are the leaves. Thin and coarse and shaped like teardrops—and _golden_. Not yellow, not like you might find on any old oak in the autumn, but golden. The same golden of pure sunlight, if you’ve ever had the privilege of knowing it.

But what is stranger, still, is they form a solid canopy beneath the sky. Not even a wisp of light could make it between the leaves, no matter where the sun shines.

Louis wonders, briefly, if these leaves _are_ sunlight, for the pathway to the manor is not dark as it should theoretically be. He wonders if these leaves are each their own private star, lighting up the little piece of earth that belongs to them underneath.

And then, of course, he laughs at himself, realizing he hasn’t proper slept in days, and all he is is sleep-deprived and delusional.

At the end of the tunnel of golden-leaved trees is white. He assumes, at first, that it’s only startling sunlight there, but the closer he gets the less-possible that seems.

And when he is faced with it at the end of the tunnel, he sighs.

Of course, the house is so big you can’t see past it. Of course.

The courtyard in front of the house itself is not, in fact, a courtyard. It’s a pool of sparkling blue water surrounding an elevated statue of a bronze man he doesn’t recognize—likely a military man only handful know exist—and illuminated by torches staked in the cement. And beyond the cement on both sides are two hedge mazes that likely join behind the house. And then, even further beyond that, the gold-leaved trees filter into a canopy of green that sweeps over the rest of the property.

And this is only the landscaping.

The house itself is marble, with five textured columns stretching from the very top floor to the ground in a row before the massive, light oak doors propped open with an ancient statue that seems a little too valuable to be used as a doorstopper. But Louis disregards it, because there are more interesting things inside.

As if the pool isn’t enough, a fountain erupts from the smooth concrete floors. Water washes down the sides, encased only at the top in glass so he feels the scattered splashes tickle his cheeks when he gets close enough. And from here are three hallways. The one straight ahead leads directly to a half-indoor-half-outdoor living space, armed with a fireplace and loveseats and the like, and past that is the rest of the hedge maze. To his left and right are hallways hardly illuminated but still light enough to see.

Louis can’t tell where these hallways lead, yet, but he knows for certain he’ll never be able to work out any sort of mental map, anyways.

He doesn’t understand the beauty of massive, ornate things. What is so beautiful about being lonely?

“Louis, dear,” Selene coos from one of the rooms down the left hall. Predictably, she says, “Help us unpack our things, won’t you?”

And, predictably, he says, “Of course.”

* * *

It’s just after six by the time Louis finds his chambers. They’re half the size of his stepsisters’ and a quarter of Selene’s, but they’re still larger than any bedroom he’s had before. Of course, this is a bittersweet upgrade, for he hasn’t enough furniture to occupy the space. Instead of the cozy room he pictured before, he is left with something that looks like a dance studio with a canopy bed and a wooden dresser in the corner.

Perhaps this is a good thing, he tells himself. Perhaps he’ll take up ballet, or find a job and spend a fortune on a grand piano to place in the center of the room so the sounds will bounce between the marble walls in a perfect echoing dream.

But this is only a daydream, for more reasons than his personal lack of fortune.

He, firstly, doesn’t know how to play piano. Secondly, he has no interest in taking it up. And, third, he’s already lacking in spare time with Selene’s constant petty favors.

_Darling, could you feed the horses this morning? The groom’s out sick._

_Louis, dear, do you have time to catch us up on our correspondence?_

It’s little things. Louis, dear, _this_. Louis, dear, _that_. Selene is the nicest woman he’s ever met, but she’s wrapped up in her own little world. Sometimes, Louis thinks, she forgets he has a laugh outside of the one she’s twisted forcibly around her finger.

And, so, when she doesn’t call for his help that night, he resolves to eat his supper on the balcony.

In Occultan, he would have watched the stars. You could always see the stars, there. Constellations, the Demigod’s star, the lot. Sometimes, as boy, he and his mother would lay in the grass in the garden and just count the stars. Then, it didn’t matter that he’d never finish.

He could finish counting the stars now, though. Only three were visible from here. The Demigod’s star, obviously, though it shone like a common one in Edora’s sky, and two others off to the West, just barely bright enough to see.

Louis brings a spoonful of his soup—tomato, his favorite—to his lips and swallows it slowly, taking the warmth there and spreading it to all the empty spaces in his body.

Another spoon to his lips, and—

Someone laughs.

It isn’t a girls laugh—not one of his stepsisters or Selene. It’s deeper than that. Hollower. _Drunker_.

“Hello?” he calls, dropping his spoon into the bowl as he stands, bracing two arms against the fence as he peers over the edge. Another laugh, but this time, it’s below the balcony.

And there stands the most obnoxiously beautiful person Louis has ever seen.

Dark, curly hair, parted down the middle, cut just above his shoulders. Eyes greener than any brand of leaves. Skin pale, glistening with sweat, cheeks flushed. Handsome. But obnoxiously so, because he widens his grin the moment he meets Louis’ eyes, and there’s that spark of mischief in his own. _Trouble_ , it blares to Louis. It’s a siren, saying things that should push him away, but instead it draws him closer with an enchanting song. And so he finds himself, instead of leaving the balcony to fetch the night guard, asking, “Can I help you?”

“No,” says the boy. Neither of them blink for an uncomfortable short while. “Can I help _you_?”

“Why would you be able to help me?”

“Why would you be able to help me?”

Louis frowns. “You don’t live here.”

“I don’t?” he asks, and for a moment, Louis wishes he’d just have fetched the night guard. And then the boy smiles and says, “I’m just teasing. Of course I don’t live here. But the boys have dropped me off in the middle of the woods, and I just started walking toward the light.”

He has multiple questions. Multiple valid, simple questions. But the only one that leaves his lips is, “Why?”

“What do you mean, why? If you were left in the darkness, you’d walk toward the light, wouldn’t you?”

Louis cocks his head, lips parting to take in a sharp, confused breath. “No—why did your friends leave you in the woods?”

“They aren’t my friends.”

“Who are ‘the boys’, then?”

The boy smiles again, and Louis notices his two front teeth are longer than the rest of them. “They’re my brothers.”

Brothers. “Why would your brothers leave you in the woods?”

The boy shakes his head, almost as if Louis’ just asked the stupidest question in the world. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“A multitude of reasons,” Louis blurts.

“Name one.”

“It’s dark. You could get attacked by an animal. There could be no light for you to follow out of the darkness. You could die in the woods all alone, and they’d lose their brother, and they’d never know.”

His upper lips quirks. “Thats four reasons.”

“Four good reasons.” He waits a moment, then asks again, “Why would your brother’s leave you in the woods?”

But the second answer is just as cryptic as the first. “It’s what we do.”

And, with that, Louis says, “Get off the property, won’t you?”

“I wish I knew how.”

“I could point you the right way, if you tell me where you need to go?” Louis toys with the idea, for a moment, of pointing the stranger the wrong way. It’d make for a funny story, one day, or he’d just wander back here and pester Louis some more.

The boy swallows, throat bobbing. “The castle,” he says. And then, as if it weren’t clear enough, “The Regia Magma.”

“Why do you need to go to the castle? It’s nearly nine.”

“I live there.”

Louis shakes his head. “You’re wearing pauper clothes. The breeches. The checkered shirt. No pauper lives at the castle.”

“Just because I’m wearing pauper clothes doesn’t mean I’m a pauper.”

True.

“What’s your name?” he asks, testing a new approach.

The boy pauses for a moment, lips open like he’s stopped in the middle of forming a word. Like he’s just barely stopped himself from answering one way, in order to answer another way. And, for that very reason, Louis doesn’t quite believe him when he says, “Harry.”

“Are you sure? You seem a little…”

Harry smiles again. “Drunk? Yes, I suppose I’ve had a few pints. But I think I know my own name. At least until the tenth pint—then I’m bound to start calling myself Annalise, or something like it.”

“Harry, can our driver take you home?” Louis asks, ignoring all the boy’s just said. It doesn’t matter, anyways. Drunk words are often nonsense.

“He can. But he doesn’t have to.”

Louis coughs to cover his laugh. It’s not an amused laugh. It’s the sort of laugh that says, _I’m done. Enough with the bull_. “Let our driver take you home.”

“Alright,” Harry says. “On one condition.”

“What condition?”

“Agree before I tell you.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry says, “All I want is for you to leave, and I’m offering up our carriage driver. His name is Samuel, and he’s a very nice lad.”

“I’m sure.”

Louis scoffs. “Stay right here,” he says. “I’m coming down.” Harry offers him a smile. A smile which, apparently, wasn’t a ‘yes’, because the boy’s disappeared by the time Louis is downstairs. “Harry? Where’ve you gone?”

No answer. Just his own words, bouncing back to him from the sky.

“Harry!” he tries again.

“Yes?”

He shouldn’t have, but Louis jumps. Harry’s face appears from behind one of the marble columns. “Goodness, Harold. Give me some warning, would you?”

“My name isn’t Harold.”

“That’s all you’ve taken away?” Louis shakes his head, taking a few steps toward Harry. “Look, mate, I don’t know what you’re doing here. You’re hammered, I’m sure, and I don’t know where to take you, because you say you live in the castle but you’re wearing pauper’s clothes.” He pauses for a second, leaning his left shoulder against the column. “Would you like some coffee?”

Harry frowns. “Coffee? It’s the middle of the night!”

“I’m aware,” Louis says, glancing at the moon about a third of the way on its track, his eyelids growing heavier by the second. “But its sobering.”

Waving him off, Harry laughs. “I don’t need sobering.”

“That’s exactly what a person who needs sobering would say.”

“Then what would a person who doesn’t need sobering say?”

Louis covers his eyes with each of his fists. “Nothing. They wouldn’t be in this conversation if they were sober.”

“You’re in this conversation.”

Louis pushes off the column, clenching his jaw. “For goodness’s sakes, Harold, are you _four_? Do you have to counter everything I say with a technicality? _I was the one asking the question_. Of course, I’m sober!”

“Sorry,” Harry says, lips pressed into a thin line. “I didn’t mean to summon the monster.”

And that’s just about all that Louis can handle. He stalks off to find the night guard, or whoever can get this abominable boy out from underneath his balcony.

In the end, Samuel takes Harry to an inn about three miles south of Torryn and checks him in for one night.

When he returns, Louis thanks him with a massive, _massive_ monetary gratuity.

* * *

“Louis, dear,” Selene says the next morning, popping berries into her mouth as she lounges in the living room.

“Yes?” he replies reluctantly, letting his novel close on his thumb. It’s _The Mysterious Scarlet Princes_ , a classic murder mystery he’s read a dozen times, but he can’t be bothered to read anything new, when he knows he’ll likely hate it. Or, at the very least, like _Scarlet Princes_ more.

Selene yawns, taking a sip of her tea. “Can you read me those letters on the hallway table? Three of them, I think. It will only take a minute.”

Of course, he says yes, and makes to fetch them. The first is a copy of the property transfer of Torryn from the Haywood family, whose grandfather had lived here until his death, to the Tomlinsons. The second letter is from Louis’ father, who is somewhere overseas in the East. It reads—

_My dear family,_

_It has been too long since I have seen your pretty faces. Alas, Julian has anchored me here until Winter. Everyday, I miss you, and I cannot wait for your embraces as soon as I return._

Then, he briefly recounts his last months at the conferences.

_I’m telling you. That man has a stick shoved up his ass, because I could so much as utter one word—of agreement, even—before he’d jut in and tell me it’s unconstitutional. To that nimrod, everything is unconstitutional. But that’s besides’ the point, I suppose._

_I miss you dearly, my daughters, my wife._

_All my love,_

_Charles_

Louis refuses to let himself feel disappointed by the letter. _I miss you dearly, my daughters, my wife._ “They’re not even your daughters,” he whispers to himself as he drops the empty envelope in the waste bin. “But _I’m_ your son.”

“Did you say something, darling?” Selene asks him. There’s a crease between her brows telling Louis she heard exactly what he said. Heard it, and thought it was too much of a hassle to deal with.

“Nothing.” He takes the final letter off the coffee table. “It’s from the Regia Magma,” he says, glancing at both the return address and the seal, a Phoenix made of wax.

Selene swallows audibly. “Yes. It’s an invitation, I’m assuming.”

“To what?”

“Some gala, I’m sure.” But it isn’t ‘some gala’. It’s an invitation, handwritten by the King, to his private estate.

_Miss Selene Tomlinson,_

_Congratulations, I suppose, are in order, for you recent move across the Pyrespeake. I’m sure Occultan will miss your enthusiasm, but I’m glad to have it here, in Edora._

_If it pleases you, my secretary has organized a small dinner next Friday at my private estate about an hour south of Torryn House. Only close friends invited, of course. Perhaps you and your daughters could make some acquaintances. I’ve listed the address below, should you decide to come._

_So it reaches my secretary, send someone over to the Regia Magma with your response attached._

_Cordially,_

_Julien III, King of Whispers_

And then the address is listed. Unsurprisingly, Louis’ first words are, “You’ve become friends with King Julien?”

“I knew him as a girl.” Selene grew up in Edora. She is Edorian as they come. And, somehow, it still seems impossible she knew King Julien when they were young. “We were friends before he was crowned.”

Louis clears his throat. “My father knows?”

“Of course.”

The silence that follows is awkward. Quiet. Selene is one of those women who can carry a conversation anywhere; change subjects with ease, make small talk as interesting as anything else, get out of an uncomfortable question with an easy counter.She is an expert in conversation. But, for once, she is silent. Almost as if she doesn’t want to talk about it.

So he shuts up, and takes it as an excuse to bid his stepmother farewell and go for a ride.

* * *

“Are you ever clean?” Adelaide asks the moment he steps through the door, sweat lining his brows and cheeks flushed an unattractive shade of red. “Or do you walk around filthy all the time?”

Louis offers her a vulgar gesture. “I’ve been playing.”

“Polo?” She quirks a brow, left hand toying with the end of one of her blonde braids.

“Chess,” he says cheekily, and then brushes a hand through his hair. “Did you need anything? I can have the maid prepare some sandwiches, if you’d like.”

Adelaide waves him off. “I can do things for myself, you know.”

“I didn’t.” Adelaide is the only one he can joke with—the only one who refuses his help unless she explicitly asks, the one who kicks him under the dinner table every time Selene asks him another favor, every time Lucille leaves her things lying around. “I’ll have the sandwiches made. _I_ want them,” he adds before she can tell him off.

“Fine.” She braces an arm on his before he can walk away. “Just bathe, first?”

Louis shoves her away. “Oh, sod off.”

About an hour later, after they’ve eaten their sandwiches and drank their tea, Selene summons Louis to her library. “What do you think about the Prince?”

“What do you mean?”

“For Adelaide,” she drawls, filing papers into a cabinet he cannot see. “It’s why Julien’s invited us for dinner, I think. Set them up. They’d be a powerful force by the time the Prince is coronated, don’t you agree?”

Louis swallows. “I’ve never met him. Edward, is his name?”

Selene nods.

“If she’s happy,” he says, “I don’t give a damn who she marries. Let it be someone rich, though. Let her be comfortable. Comfortable and happy.”

“Happy is the least of my concerns.” Yes. That’s usually how it goes in the case of political marriages. “I hear he’s a poet--painting lines all around the city. On walls, streets, trees. I hope, for Adelaide’s sake, he grows out of it. Those poor habits won’t be good for her image.”

Her image. Adelaide didn’t have much of an image, aside from being Selene’s own offspring. Selene wasn’t a princess, but she was as close as a noble girl could get. Edora adored her, and a daughter of Selene’s was a daughter of Edora, whether or not she had been raised there.

“Dinner is twelve days from now,” Louis says.

“What about it?”

He swallows. “Just…soon.” Soon for his darling little sister to be engaged. Or even a prospect for engagement. “Is that all you needed me for?”

“Yes, yes. Go.” And although its the end of their conversation, Louis has a feeling its the start of an entirely and much bigger new one.

* * *

There is something inherently peculiar about dusk. Not the whole hour, but the one, precise moment between afternoon and night, where the sun lets out a hissing breath and retreats beneath the earth for a snooze, and the sky exhales deep and low, the moon beginning to rise on the other side. That single moment, where all these things happen at the very same time, and the world is—for once—in perfect unison.

Beautiful, some might call it.

But Louis only calls it peculiar.

He has lived here for a week, now. Has gotten used to waking without his rooster and instead with the sunrise. Has gotten used to the way the maid makes his tea in the evenings—more milk than he would have liked, so it’s colored a light tan instead of the warm, medium brown he’s had all his life. Has fallen into a rhythm of doing nothing and still, somehow, being perfectly busy at the same time.

So, on this Sunday night, as the driver rolls to a stop outside the masquerade, right around that perfect dusk, he swallows.

Partying is not part of his routine.

 _Meet some friends_ , Adelaide told him. _You have youth, but you won’t have it forever_.

Sometimes, her wisdom bothers him. This is, quite fairly, one of those times. But he is here, anyways, invitation tucked into his boot and wearing what might very well be the most prim and proper outfit he’s ever worn. Aside from the mask adorned in red glitter, of course. He’s even shed his breeches and replaced them with beige trousers far too wide for his thighs.

The guard at the door holds out his hand for Louis’ invitation, scanning it briefly before allowing him in. He isn’t entirely sure who sent it—there was no return address, and Adelaide set it outside his bedroom without so much as a word of explanation.

Perhaps she’d retrieved it on purpose—scoured all of Edora for an invitation to a party.

But the moment he steps inside, he realizes just how wrong he is.

This isn’t the sort of party you can _find_ an invitation to. It’s wild—cramped—expensive. Its the sort of party so exclusive that if you _do_ somehow get invited, you might even refuse to go because of only the sheer pressure of being in this room with these sorts of people. It’s the sort of party say, a prince, would attend.

And Louis immediately wants to leave. He can feel hot breath all over his body, and there isn’t anyone within six feet of him. But he feels their breath, anyways, because there are more people sharing this air than should be healthy—or allowed.

“Drink?” says a server, grazing his shoulder with a plate of champagne glasses.

“No, thank you,” he says. For someone else, drunkenness might be a way to get through the night. But the thought of being anything but sober in this place filled with so many important people makes his stomach churn.

The server nods and scurries off, the small smile on his lips telling Louis that he might possibly understand.

* * *

At the back of the ballroom, Louis, at long last, finds a seat.

Unfortunately, he has company.

A man, masked, of course, adorned in a maroon velvet petticoat and a tunic embroidered with gold, sits reading one table over. He isn’t reading a book, but is thumbing through the pages of a leather journal, it’s tie laying alienated on the tablecloth.

The stranger doesn’t seem to notice Louis sit, and he thanks the stars for that, but as he pulls his chair into the table, he hears, “I’m reading.”

Louis clears his throat. “I can see that.”

“I’m reading,” he says again, dragging his eyes away from the page to meet Louis’ curious gaze. “In other words, _leave_.”

“I’m not bothering you.”

Although Louis can’t see his face, the man’s ears flush red. “Unfortunately, that isn’t for you to decide.”

“I didn’t say a word, and you’re telling me to leave.”

“Well, I don’t know you, and I’m quite busy.” He looks back to the page, eyes moving across each line so precisely that Louis wonders if he is, in fact, reading, or if he’s only dragging his sight along the words, feeling Louis’ gaze burn through his skull, putting on a composed front for the stranger.

Louis doesn’t move. Instead, he scoots his chair out, and sticks his feet of the table, crossing them at the ankles. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“Doesn’t matter.” His accent is posh—each consonant is annunciated fully, and the vowels are each a long drawl. “What’s yours?”

“Louis,” he says, because he, unlike the stranger, isn’t a weasel. “Where are you from?”

The man’s eyes snap up from his journal to meet Louis’. “Relentless, are you? Do you have nothing better to do than pester me for attention?”

“I came here for quiet, not attention.”

“Then why in _bloody hell_ do you keep talking?” He, arms and jaw tense, drops his journal and places his hands on the table, leaning on them as he stands (halfway) from his seat. “Shut up, _Louis_. Shut up and, while you're at it, find someone else to bother.” Sitting back down, he reopens his journal, and produces a fountain pen from the inside of his coat.

Louis, unable to resist, mutters, “Aren’t you hot in that thing?” He just might have a death wish.

“In what thing?” He isn’t paying Louis an ounce of attention more than necessary—that fact is painfully obvious.

“The petticoat. It’s midsummer, and we’re inside a ballroom.”

The man shakes his head. “Of course, I’m not hot. You don’t see me taking it off, do you?” He says this all as his eyes are locked on the page, scanning the lines as if they held the greatest truths of humanity, and to find them all he had to do was look.

“It just looks heavy, that’s all.” Louis pulls his only source of entertainment, a deck of cards, from his boot.

Surprisingly, the stranger asks him, “What are you playing?”

And, unsurprisingly, Louis replies, ”Solitaire,” if only to send the message he’d like to play alone.

But the stranger only continues. “What sort of solitaire?” Louis wonders what game _he’s_ playing.

“Idiot’s Delight,” he says, glancing sidelong at the man, watching his brow crinkle curiously. “You’ve played before, haven’t you?”

“No.” And that is the end of that conversation, apparently.

Louis begins playing, and each time he removes a pair of cards from the deck, the stranger swallows. “Do you want me to teach you?” he asks after the first game, after a few minutes.

Silence greets him. Silence that, for some reason, carries the word, _Yes_.

“Flip four cards from the back.” He demonstrates. “If the two cards on the ends are the same suit, you remove the two between them. If they’re the same number, you remove all four. If neither, you hide the first card and draw another.”

The stranger stands from his chair and walks—in two clean steps on long, lean legs—toward Louis. He sits beside him. “When does the game end?”

“When you’ve got no cards left to turn over.”

The man watches studiously, eyes narrowed even from behind the mask. He asks no questions, only drumming his fingers on the table when there are no cards to remove. “How do you know you’ve won?” he asks once the game finishes.

“If you’ve no cards left in the pile.” Louis shuffles the cards and plays again, painfully aware of the man’s gaze on his hands, moving eagerly and gracefully with the cards.

After a third silent game, he asks, “Can I play?”

And, of course, Louis hands him the deck. Because he isn’t a weasel.

It takes him a little longer than it does Louis to get through the game. He works slower, using both hands to remove cards instead of one. His eyes drag across the cards a few times over before he makes his moves, and the discard pile is neat and straight.

He’s only ten cards away from finishing when an unmasked noble boy in a blue petticoat knocks the stranger on his head with his fist. “Harry! What’re you doing? This is a _party_ , not a poker game.”

Harry. Is this…is this the drunken boy from a few nights back? The one he’d had dropped off at an inn? The one wearing a pauper’s clothes?

Louis’ fingers tingle, aching to reach forward and take off Harry’s mask. See if they are the same. Their voices are not, he realizes, when this stranger speaks again.

“We’re not playing poker.” His voice is deeper. More accented. The boy from the other night spoke in a higher slur of words. Perhaps it was the drunkenness, Louis notes.

The noble boy frowns. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn what you’re playing. You’re a bore in every way tonight. Haven’t even had a drink.”

“I don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to drinking, I’m afraid.”

Louis’ eyes trail to Harry’s hands, where he’s continuing to play. Slower now, as he’s distracted by the noble boy, but playing all the same.

“Who’s your friend?” asks the noble.

Harry puts the deck into one hand and offers him a vulgar gesture. “Sod off, Liam.”

Liam doesn’t ‘sod off’. Instead, he grabs Harry by the shoulders, lifting him right out of his seat. “Come on. Have a drink. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

“I’ve got everything to lose, actually,” Harry says. But he only looks too Louis, handing him the deck with his free hand, the other in Liam’s hold.

Laughing, Liam drags him away. “You’re a strange one, Harold.”

“My name isn’t Harold.” And that’s when Louis knows it’s him.

* * *

Louis play’s the rest of Harry’s game.

He wins.

He’s never won before.

* * *

The night comes to a close, and the closest Louis has come to making a friend is Harry. So, essentially, he’s only made an acquaintance. One that found him about as interesting as an empty piece of parchment, apparently, as every time they’d caught each other’s eye since Idiot’s Delight, he’d only looked back to whatever prim and proper lady he’d been dancing with, a different one every time.

All blondes, though. Perhaps he had a thing for blondes.

“Thank you,” says a voice in his ear. It’s not the Harry from earlier tonight. Well, it is. It’s the maroon petticoat and pearly mask around his eyes. But his voice the higher pitch of the first Harry he’d met, a week ago. And his jaw isn’t set, anymore. He’s drunk again.

Louis shivers at the warmth of his breath in this room cooled by the twilight. “Whatever for?”

“For making sure I got home safely. I recognized you, of course. Louis of Torryn, was it?”

“I thought you were too drunk off your ass to remember.” He clenches his fists at his side, turning away from Harry. He almost walks away.

Harry clears his throat. “I don’t forget things.”

“I didn’t make sure you got home safely, by the way.” It isn’t what Louis wanted to say. He wasn’t sure he wanted to say _anything_ , exactly. But it’s what rolls off his tongue. “I had my driver take you to a ramshackle inn, even after you told me where you lived.”

He can hear Harry smile. “I wouldn’t have believed me, either, to be honest.”

“Do I look like I care what you would have believed?” Louis says, turning around. But Harry’s face was hovering just above his shoulder, and he ends up smacking him with his jaw. “Sorry.”

Harry shakes his head, rubbing his cheekbone. “That apology was about as sincere as my thank you.”

“Completely insincere, then,” Louis says, nodding. “Why were you wearing a pauper’s clothes?”

“Was I?”

Swallowing, Louis says, “Yes. Breeches. A checkered shirt. And then you asked me to take you to the Regia Magma, as if I was supposed to believe you.”

“Yes, well, my common sense escapes me, sometimes.”

“When you’re drunk?”

Harry parts his lips, almost as if to form a word, but they shift before he can and he whispers very quietly, “No.”

Louis waits for more, but it doesn’t come. They just stand there, gaze anywhere but on each other, painfully aware of the lacking space between them. Unable to stand it anymore, Louis takes a step back. “I’m going to hail a carriage.”

“Already? It’s only midnight, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Midnight is later than I meant to stay.” His cheeks warm, realizing how prudish he sounds. “I have an early morning, tomorrow,” he adds, then spins on his heel and makes for the door.

But Harry follows. “Early morning? Louis of Torryn has _duties_ to attend to?”

“I’m not Louis of _anything_. I’m just Louis. My stepmother is Lady of Torryn, and I have no claim to the land, anyways.”

“Your father isn’t in the picture?”

Louis blows out a stream of breath, pushing his way through a few couples, dancing lazily through the ballroom. He doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he asks, “Why would your brothers leave you in the woods?”

Harry quirks a brow. “I have no brothers.”

“You said, ‘the boys have dropped me off in the middle of the woods, and I just started walking toward the light.’ You told me they’re your brothers.”

“Ah.” He nods, face relaxing as if fondly reliving a memory. “Figuratively my brothers. The boys. I grew up with them.”

Louis salutes the guard who took his invitation as he reaches the door. He makes to swing it open, but the guard opens it for him. His cheeks warm. “Sorry. Thank you,” he says in a flustered daze. And then he feels the cool air of the night on his skin, and the flutter in his stomach disappears. He takes a slow, deep breath.

“It’s a game we play,” Harry says, and Louis almost jumps.

“I forgot you’d been stalking me, for a moment.” He rolls his neck, making a right onto the sidewalk. The streets are brick. Not made for carriages. He’ll only find private drivers, here, so he walks North to the main road.

Harry chuckles to himself, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Caught up in your own little world. I’m aware.”

“What do you mean?”

“ _Sorry. Thank you,_ ” he mimics, making his voice higher.

Louis coughs. “I don’t talk like that,” he says, a little more aware of his pitch. “I don’t talk like that,” he says again, doing his very best to lower his voice discreetly.

“But you do.” Harry taks two quick steps and then they fall into stride together. He takes one hand from his pocket and peels off his mask.

It takes all of Louis’ effort not to stare. Not to examine each and every freckle on his face. Not to let his gaze linger on creases in his cheeks—dimples like no other. Not to adamantly notice the way his cheeks flush from the cold. He clears his throat after a moment, dragging his gaze away. He doesn’t take off his own mask.

“A game?” Louis asks, clearing his throat.

“Everyone is dropped three miles from the castle, hammered as can be. Whoever gets back first wins the pot.”

Louis begins to crack his knuckles, starting with his thumb. “The pot of buy-ins?”

“Twelve-hundred count each.”

Harry is taller than him, so every ten steps he hovers in the air for a moment while Louis catches up. “I played the rest of your game.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” He swallows, shutting his eyes for a moment. “You won.” He waits for obnoxious boasting, but it doesn’t come.

Harry only says, “Did I? That’s nice.” He sighs. “Beginners luck, I’m sure.”

“Something like that,” Louis whispers, nodding. He’s just about reached the main street, now, and the brick road fades into dirt. There aren’t many carriages, but there are a few. “Aren’t you going back to the party?”

Harry cocks his head, grabbing Louis’ arm. He drags him across the street again to where a carriage is slowly trotting along. “Course not. I’ve got things to do.”

“Things? What kind of things?”

A laugh, cold and deep, sounds. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“So do you.”

“Fair.” He pauses a moment, then, digs a few coins out of his pocket. “For your ride.”

Louis frowns. “I’m not—I’m nobility, _Harold_. Whether or not I have a claim on my stepmother’s land. I’m not deprived, or poor—I don’t need your charity.” He stares at the eight count in Harry’s hand, then lifts his gaze to his face, clenching his jaw.

“It’s not charity.”

His blood began to boil beneath his skin, cheeks heating even though Harry couldn’t see them. “Isn’t it?”

“Lou—”

“Louis,” he interrupts, spinning on his heel to walk away. Without turning back, he repeats, “It’s Louis, to you.”

And that’s how his night ends.


End file.
